IPL 2024: Gujarat Titans pacer Mohammed Shami to miss full season, undergo surgery for ankle injury

Mohammed Shami IPL: Gujarat Titans (GT) have dealta major blow as senior Indian pacer Mohammed Shami has been ruled out of the forthcoming IPL 2024 edition. Shami will miss the entire season to undergo surgery for an ankle injury, which has kept him out of action since India's ODI World Cup 2023 campaign at home. The speedster missed the entire South Africa tour and is also not part of the ongoing home Tests versus England.

A senior BCCI source told PTI on conditions of anonymity, "Shami was in London in last week of January to take special ankle injections and he was told that after three weeks, he can start light running and take it from thereon. But the injection hasn't worked and now the only option left is surgery. He will shortly leave for UK for surgery. IPL seems out of question."

Shami's injury is a big blow to Shubman Gill-led GT ahead of IPL 2024, whose schedule is expected to be out soon.

Shami has been in sublime touch in recent times. Having missed the initial ODI WC games, the pacer still managed to end the tournament as the leading wicket-taker (24). Even in IPL 2023, he was the highest wicket-taker, ending with 28 scalps at an average of 18.64 and a best of 4 for 11 for the then Hardik Pandya-led side. His performance was instrumental in the one-time winners ending as the runners-up.

The new development has pointed fingers at the injury rehabilitation management programme planned by the National Cricket Academy (NCA), in Bengaluru, for Shami. It is highly unlikely for the pacer to regain full fitness ahead of the 2024 T20 World Cup and also for the Test series versus Bangladesh and New Zealand (later in the year).

GT squad for IPL 2024

Mathew Wade, Wriddiman Saha, Robin Minz, Shubman Gill (c), David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Kane Williamson, Sai Sudharsan, Rashid Khan (vc), Rahul Tewatia, Jayant Yadav, Vijay Shankar, Azmatullah Omarzai, Darshan Nalkande, Shahrukh Khan, Umesh Yadav, Josh Little, R. Sai Kishore, Mohit Sharma, Noor Ahmad, Sushant Mishra, Kartik Tyagi, Manav Suthar, Spencer Johnson